In this Day and Age?Follow

In the Japanese fishing village of Taiji, fishermen are rounding up and slaughtering hundreds and even thousands of dolphins right now.

After driving pods of dolphins into shallow coves, the fishermen kill the dolphins, slashing their throats with knives or stabbing them with spears. Thrashing about, the dolphins take as long as six minutes to die. The water turns red with their blood and the air fills with their screams.

This brutal massacre — the largest scale dolphin kill in the world — goes on for six months of every year. Even more shocking, the captive dolphin industry is an accomplice to the kill.

Japanese people are crazy? Thanks for the news flash.

I know you were kidding, but sometimes I think they're closer to sane than a lot of other countries.

At least they see dolphins for what they are despite the higher intelligence. They're fish. They might be classified as "aquatic mammals." But in the end, they're seafood just like the rest of the critters they're swimin' with.

That doesn't hold a whole lot of ground coming from you, but I digress.

If we weren't at the top of the food chain, this simply would not be a discussion. Period.

You've had Dolphin?

When you find yourself defending a stupid point and are unwilling to admit your mistake, it is usually best to stop posting in that thread as opposed to digging deeper.

You've had Dolphin?

Many tuna species associate with dolphins, swimming alongside them. These include yellowfin tuna in the eastern Pacific Ocean, but not albacore and skipjack. The reason for the association is believed to be the avoidance of dolphins by sharks, which are predators of tuna. Swimming near dolphins reduces the likelihood of the tuna being attacked by a shark [2].

Fishing vessels can exploit this association by searching for herds of dolphins. They encircle the herd with nets to catch the tuna beneath [3]. The nets are prone to entangling dolphins, thus injuring or killing them. Amidst public outcry about this, methods have become more "dolphin friendly", generally involving lines rather than nets. However, there are neither universal independent inspection programs nor verification of "dolphin safeness" to show that dolphins are not harmed during tuna fishing. According to the Consumers Union, this gives little credibility to the claims that tuna is "dolphin safe".

I've only had really crappy gator then. I've never been a fan.

As an aside, shark is also randomly delicious.